respect

Dear friends, lovers, sisters, allies, revolutionaries

Submit and spread the word about the AQSAzine Issue #3 MY ISLAM "because Allah gave you the right to figure it out"

WHY SUBMIT

from Victoria's Sex Blog

Until you’ve actually had a baby, you cannot have a CLUE what you’re in for… and it’s the same with sex. I remember my shock (and absolute THRILL!) the first time a male hand slid behind the zipper of my jeans to touch my pelvis, and lower… and although I’d been doing some heavy duty making out until then, I had absolutely no idea how fabulous another person’s touch could feel on my private parts. I guess I am one of the fortunate young girls who truly was a virgin before that happened; from the stories I have heard from girlfriends, it’s not quite the same when you have already been touched way before you were ready or willing.

After reading about the negative effects of too-accessible pornography on children and youth, I sat down with my two teenage boys and told them we were going to have a talk about just that. They were pretty cool about it… they knew I knew they looked at porn (although I don’t know how much) and they know I know something about it because they know that I’ve drawn it, although I can’t be sure about how much of my work they have actually seen either. My attitude up until now has been to keep this work discreet, but not completely hidden; they know I draw and photograph the nude body and they know I do something about sexuality, but what exactly…?

from Victoria's Sex Blog

As I get older, it’s becoming clearer to me that we really know nothing about anything until we’ve actually experienced it.  And we’re never really prepared for it until we get there. I just read a most disturbing report about the impact of Internet pornography on youth and children by two Montreal reporters, Isabelle Maher and Martin Bisaillon - if you read French, please look it up. They are sounding an alarm that needs to be sounded loud and clear to make us (adults-parents-society) wake up to the devastating impact that overly accessible porn-as-sex-education is having on our children. So today I want to focus, as usual, on love expressed sexually, by honouring some people who have long been making an effort to make a difference.

Bill and Desiree, whom I had the pleasure of illustrating together from a photo-still (above) are people who care enough about sharing positive images of sexuality to share their own private moments of passion with others. Both have written for sex-positive publications, and Bill writes lovely erotic poetry that I have already included and will continue to publish on this blog. Last year they shared their story through interviews and scenes of lovemaking with Comstock films, a couple-run company that makes DVDs of real people having real sex, and I was fortunate enough to be able to see their particular DVD and use stills from it to create drawings. Thank you  Joan Price for putting us in contact, to Tony and Peggy at Comstock for allowing this precious collaboration, and to Bill and Desiree for continuing to spread their love!

By Millie Jackson

Gratitude is a great remedy for discontentment.  Being grateful produces positive results because it sets into motion an uplifting appreciation for life.  Thankfully, living with an attitude of gratitude is an option we all have regardless of our circumstances.

Happiness and contentment can be found in the moment when we are not constantly looking for new things to come along and “make” us happy (job, car, relationships, clothes, toys, etc.).  What we don’t have can appear far more desirable, while what we do have can seem worth less--the proverbial “The grass is always greener on the other side”.  By experiencing gratitude for what we have, we can avoid the pitfall of “not knowing what we had until it’s gone”.

Health and wellness are great examples of aspects of ourselves that often are taken for granted until a crisis is experienced.  It is this disregard for our bodies that can result in lack of appropriate care that precipitates some crises.

By Ponni Arasu (mailponni@gmail.com)

First Published : 07 Nov 2009 [express buzz]

Ins Kromminga has been in Delhi for the past few days.  He/she was the guest artist at the Nigah Queer fest ‘09.  The fest, which has partially collaborated with the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi for the past two years has had one artist from Germany every year.  Ins Kromminga is an artist and activist who works on a range of issues concerning intersex persons.  He/she is the German spokesperson for the Organisation of Intersex International.

I whisked him/her away for a while during the Nigah picnic, at Nehru park in Delhi, the closing event of the fest this year.  Below are Kromminga’s opinions on intersex persons’ issues and the role of art in the same.

What is “intersex”?

I will try and explain this complex aspect in as simple a form as possible.  It is a biological reality where a person’s body integrates parts that are usually considered to be “female” and “male”.  This can be at multiple levels.  It can be in the genetalia, chromosomes, and the genetic system on the whole and so on.  There are many variations in this continuum.  Medical signs has identified eight categories to determine any human being’s sex and all persons have to fit within these to make a clear cut call on a person’s gender.  And thus, presumably, most people will not fit perfectly within these minimalistic paradigms. 

Crossposted from Clarisse Thorn

Click here for the previous installment, "Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 2: Men's Rights"

I'm about to assert something that makes me nervous, because I worry that people are going to stick me in the "asshole MRA" box.  Don't get me wrong: I certainly don't think that women have it better, overall, than men do.  But I do wonder whether it might be good for feminists to acknowledge that -- although we don't experience nearly as much privilege as men -- there are a lot of advantages women experience that men don't.

Because women aren't seen as threatening, we have an easier time doing confrontational things like approaching strangers on the street.   Because women aren't seen as fighters, we stand a lower chance of being mugged than men do.  Because women are seen as emotional, we're given a huge amount of social space to consider and discuss our feelings.  I can work with and be affectionate with children far more easily than a man could.  I can be explicit and overt about my sexuality without being viewed as a creep.

And there are at least a few recurring complaints about how trying to be masculine can suck.  First and foremost: that men don't feel they've been taught to process their emotions, or don't feel allowed to display them.  Another: that they're perceived as less manly if they don't achieve success through a career, especially if they aren't the main breadwinner for their family.   A third: that men are expected to be sexually insatiable, or always to be sexually available.

Cross-posted at Clarisse Thorn

Over the summer, I wrote a 3500-word piece about masculinity. It touched on some themes I've messed around with before, most notably in my reviews of the Sex+++ documentaries "Private Dicks: Men Exposed" and "Boy I Am."   I fondly hoped that I might be able to do something "real" with it, but I've gotten rather immersed in my work here in Africa -- and I've been having some trouble keeping up with America, due to irregular Internet access.   Today, I managed to catch up with some of my blogroll and saw that Audacia Ray recently posted some thoughts about masculinity, including excellent links to various new frontiers in the masculinity conversation.  Looks like the topic is really heating up -- finally!   I've been obsessing about it off and on for years, and it's exciting to think that people might finally talk to me about it.

So, rather than letting my masculinity piece languish under a rug -- since I'll probably never be able to do anything official with it before the conversation moves on, anyway -- I'm just going to serialize it here. (I'd post the whole thing at once, but I don't want to inflict 3500 words on everyone's blog reader!)

Questions I Want To Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 1: Who Cares?

Why do I care about masculinity?

I'm rather perverted, but not enormously queer. I present as femme, and -- although I've been known to tease my sensitive (frequently long-haired) lovers for being "unmasculine" -- I fall in love with men.  At heart, I love knowing that I'm fucking a man.